Access to medical care providers remains a challenge for many patient populations, both due to cost and lack of geographic proximity. Patient populations in rural areas, especially those in third world countries, will likely find themselves without adequate numbers of local treating physicians for decades to come. Many patients are house-bound and cannot easily travel to a medical clinic. In addition, certain types of specialists (e.g., neurologists) are often in short supply, leaving some patient populations underserved.
Telemedicine systems have been proposed as a way of remotely diagnosing and treating patients using telephonic communications. However, known systems typically suffer from several drawbacks. First, many of them lack adequate safeguards to protect the confidentiality of patient medical information. In the United States, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”) requires entities exchanging health care information to enact appropriate safeguards to protect the confidentiality of electronically transmitted patient information. Many prior telemedicine systems do not allow patients and physicians to communicate in real time in a manner that protects their communications from third parties.
In addition, many known telemedicine systems lack a mechanism for conveniently and securely transmitting patient diagnostic information, such as blood pressure data, pulse oxymeter data, spirometer data, stethoscope data, pulse and blood gas analysis, weight, electrocardiograph data, and blood chemistry data, to a patient records server located remotely from the patient. Many known systems also lack a mechanism by which a physician can remotely and securely access such data. Thus, a need has arisen for a system and method for performing virtual medical examinations which addresses the foregoing issues.